Our Mission

CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS) is a not-for-profit joint venture between the world’s leading academic publishers and research libraries whose mission is to build a sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive with which to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based scholarly publications for the benefit of the greater global research community.

CLOCKSS is for the entire world's benefit. Content no longer available from any publisher ("triggered content") is available for free. CLOCKSS uniquely assigns this abandoned and orphaned content a Creative Commons license to ensure it remains available forever.

Reasons to Participate in CLOCKSS

• The archive is a not-for-profit organization governed by, and for, its stakeholders, not a third-party. Publishers and librarians have equal say in deciding procedures, priorities, and when to trigger content.

• CLOCKSS' decentralized, geographically disparate preservation model ensures that the digital assets of the community will survive intact. Additionally, it satisfies the demand for locally situated archives with 12 archive nodes worldwide.

• Orphaned and abandoned electronic scholarly content is permanently preserved in CLOCKSS, providing comprehensive reassurance that content will always be available. Open access content no longer available from the publisher, is available for free from CLOCKSS.

• CLOCKSS participants have the opportunity to be deeply involved in all aspects of our industry and help to keep the community’s best interests at the forefront. CLOCKSS has already made an impact on industry policies and practices.

• Libraries and publishers want a choice of archiving solutions. Rather than put "all their eggs in one basket," some institutions may prefer to participate in multiple archives.

CLOCKSS is a tax-exempt, 501(c)3, not-for-profit organization, governed by a Board of Directors made up of librarians and publishers.

...let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.